This invention relates to organizers in general and more particularly to organizers for articles having elongate members, such as garden and lawn tools having cylindrical handles or other types of handles, as well as organizers that provide storage and organization for articles not having elongate members by using support structures.
Many households have a variety of garden and lawn tools, as well as recreational tools and the like, with elongate handles, such as rakes, shovels, brooms, etc. These items do not fit in conventional drawers and are often stored on end in a comer of the room leaning against a wall, in a barrel of some type, on a wall rack, or on hooks. Some homeowners simply lay them on the floor.
All of these storage methods have significant disadvantages. For example, rakes and brooms do not fit well in the comer in an inverted vertical position and are unstable when simply stood against the wall. A stack of elongate tools standing on end is prone to sliding and falling, creating both clutter and a safety hazard. Additionally, when the number of tools stored in such a way increases, retrieving an item becomes difficult because it is often necessary to disassemble the entire stack to get to the desired tool, and then reassemble the stack. Similarly, storing tools in a heap on the floor complicates retrieval, creates clutter, and takes up a substantial amount of space.
While hanging tools from hooks or supports attached to a wall is a space-saving method, which advantageously permits tools to be organized, a number of practical limitations and disadvantages arise. For example, this method requires a plurality of hooks and supports to be rigidly mounted in some stationary arrangement to accommodate a particular set of tools. Accordingly, to achieve adequate organization after using the tools, they generally must be returned to their original arrangement. This complicates the use of such supports, especially when multiple users remove several tools simultaneously. This often leads to returning the tools to the wrong holders, which in turn leads to disorganized and unsafe storage of the tools.
Additionally, placement and removal of tools from wall-mounted supports can require some amount of skill and precision. Similarly, when the stored tools are intended for use by multiple users of substantially different height, strength, and arm reach, as it is often the case in households with small children or elderly family members, it is difficult to choose a location for the supports on the wall which is both convenient and safe for all users. Moreover, if more tools are added to the collection, often the only way to accommodate them is to demount the supports and rearrange them on the wall to make room for the new additions. Storage of tools that do not have any openings or protuberances present a problem as they do not possess any means for readily holding the tool in the support; thus, they simply cannot be safely stored on hooks or other wall-mounted supports. Lastly, any generally linear arrangement of hooks or supports can also be problematic in that, unless staggered vertically or widely separated horizontally, tool heads can overlap, making removal difficult or requiring removal of more than one tool to access the tool of choice.
To remedy and overcome these difficulties, a variety of three-dimensional tool organizers have been proposed, which provide for inverted vertical storage of these tools with handles pointing downwards and utility heads pointing upwards. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,947,998 to Smeller, U.S. Pat. No. 5,390,944 to Sherwin, U.S. Pat. No. 5,833,250 to Schier, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,810,177 to Cabiran, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.
Many of these tool organizers known in the art have a bulky body with a substantial footprint. Such a configuration renders these organizers difficult to use in confined spaces, such as between a garage wall and a car, or between cars. Additionally, some organizers limit the ability of the user to organize the tools as desired, because the organizer may have a certain number of specific mounts or locations designed for particular types of tools. This complicates the use of such organizers by limiting the number of locations a particular tool may be returned to and often leads to disorganization.
Finally, many of the organizers known in the art require substantial lifting of tools in order to insert or remove them from the organizer. This complicates and often prohibits using such organizers in low overhead environments, as well as by children and the elderly.
There exists, therefore, a significant need for a tool holder that affords a convenient and flexible way to store a collection of tools efficiently in a three-dimensional space while providing easy insertion and removal and fault-free return by multiple users. In particular, there is a need for a tool holder which can easily store and organize tools with elongate members, such as lawn and garden tools, in a limited height, low-overhead space, such as may be found in a garage, a lawn and garden shed, or on a patio. Further, there is a need for a tool holder which can be used against finished walls, near windows, between cars in a garage, and elsewhere where conventional wall-mounted organizers cannot be used. Additionally, there exists a need for a freestanding tool holder capable of holding the tools in a generally linear or regular arrangement.
With the foregoing in mind, the present invention eliminates or substantially alleviates the foregoing disadvantages of organization and storage devices known in the prior art.
In general, the invention includes a first rail and a second rail vertically and horizontally offset from each other forming an opening therebetween for receiving an elongate member in a generally vertical orientation.
In some embodiments, the rails may be substantially flat, generally parallel crossbars further characterized by generally opposed edges for contacting the elongate member when inserted therebetween. In other embodiments, the rails may be a first hoop and a second hoop generally concentric therewith, further characterized by generally opposed edges for contacting the elongate member when inserted therebetween.
The rails may have at least one depression along an edge thereof or at least two depressions along opposing edges, which can be horizontally or radially aligned with each other to restrict lateral movement of the elongate member when disposed therein.
In one aspect of the invention, a stable structure may be formed by two end plates attached to side edges of the crossbars. With the hoops, a stable structure may be formed by one or more legs attached to the hoops or by arranging the hoops so that the tools lean radially inwardly. In another aspect of the invention, outward extents of the end plates, hoops, or optional legs define a footprint of the tool holder. If a vertical projection through a center of gravity of any elongate member inserted between the crossbars or hoops lies within the footprint, the tool holder is stable and will not tip, regardless of the number, type, or location of tools being stored. Another advantage is that tools can be rotated in place relatively easily, thereby eliminating tool head interference without having to remove the tools. As a result, tool heads can be oriented with their major axes perpendicular to the major axis or length of the tool holder in order to ease insertion and removal and to maximize the number of tools for a given tool holder length.
Further embodiments of the invention are drawn to use of at least one elongate member having at least one support for supporting at least one item thereon when the elongate member is inserted between the rails. Additionally or alternatively, the elongate member may have a shelf disposed on the support.
Also contemplated by the present invention are associated methods for organizing and storing articles with elongate members, as well as articles without elongate members. In a general embodiment of the method of the present invention, a first rail and a second rail are provided vertically and horizontally offset from each other forming an opening therebetween for receiving an elongate member in a generally vertical orientation.
These and other objects, along with advantages and features of the present invention herein disclosed, will become apparent to those skilled in the art through reference to the following description of various embodiments of the invention, the accompanying drawings, and the claims.